Disputatio X: De Revelatione et Cognitione Dei

On Revelation and Knowledge of God

Quaeritur

Utrum cognitio Dei oriatur ex participatione in actu ipsius revelationis, ita ut Deus cognoscatur non per discursum rationis sed in ipso actu quo se revelat; et utrum hic actus revelationis sit constitutive duplex, simul exterior in Verbo proclamato et interior in Spiritu illuminante, per quos intellectus humanus capax fit veritatis divinae.

Whether knowledge of God arises through participation in the act of divine revelation itself, such that God is known not through discursive reason but within the very act by which He discloses Himself; and whether this revelatory act is constitutively twofold—external in the proclaimed Word and internal in the illuminating Spirit—by whom the human intellect is made capable of divine truth.

Thesis

True knowledge of God does not originate in human speculation. It arises only within revelation. Revelation is not chiefly the transmission of information about God but the divine self-giving through which God becomes knowable. In this act the eternal Word addresses the human intellect externally through the scriptural and proclaimed Word, while the Holy Spirit illumines the intellect internally, enabling participation in the truth revealed.

Thus theological cognition is a participatory reception of divine self-manifestation. It is neither autonomous reasoning nor passive impression. It is the Spirit-mediated union of the knower with the truth that reveals itself. In knowing God, the intellect becomes—by grace—an organ of divine manifestation.

Locus classicus

John 17:3
Haec est autem vita aeterna, ut cognoscant te, solum verum Deum, et quem misisti Iesum Christum.
“And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

1 Corinthians 2:12
Nos autem non spiritum mundi accepimus, sed Spiritum qui ex Deo est, ut sciamus quae a Deo donata sunt nobis.
“We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand the things freely given us by God.”

Augustine, De Trinitate IX.13
Non intratur in veritatem nisi per ipsam veritatem.
“One does not enter into truth except through Truth itself.”

These witnesses articulate a single insight: revelation both discloses divine reality and creates the capacity for its reception. Knowledge of God presupposes both the presence of the revealing Word and the illumination of the Spirit.

Explicatio

The inquiry into divine revelation must begin with the recognition that God is not an object within the world whose properties may be inferred from created effects. God is known only because God gives Himself to be known. Revelation is therefore not an epistemic supplement to natural inquiry but the condition under which knowledge of God becomes possible. In revealing Himself, God not only manifests the truth but also creates the horizon within which that truth can be apprehended.

Revelation is thus a single divine act with a twofold form. Externally, the Word addresses the creature through prophetic and apostolic testimony, through preaching, and supremely in the Incarnate Son. Internally, the Spirit illumines the intellect so that what is heard may be recognized as divine truth. These two operations are inseparable. The external Word is the objective presence of revelation; the internal illumination is its subjective reception. Without the Word, illumination lacks content. Without illumination, the Word is not savingly known. Revelation occurs only in the union of these acts.

This twofold structure safeguards the intellect from both rationalism and enthusiasm. Rationalism assumes that the mind can rise to divine truth by its own power; enthusiasm imagines that divine truth can be apprehended apart from the concrete forms of God’s address. But theological cognition arises only where the Spirit joins the intellect to the proclaimed Word and thereby renders the creature capable of divine truth. This elevation does not replace natural capacities; it perfects them. The intellect does not cease to reason; rather, it reasons within a light it does not generate.

In this sense revelation is not merely epistemic but ontological. It is the act in which God is present to the creature and the creature is drawn into that presence. The intellect knows God not by forming concepts that encompass the divine essence but by participating in the self-disclosure of the One who reveals Himself. The mode of knowing corresponds to the mode of being known. Because God reveals Himself personally, the creature knows personally; because God reveals Himself freely, the creature knows by grace; because God reveals Himself truly, the creature knows in truth, though not comprehensively.

The knowledge that arises from revelation is therefore hyperintensional in character. It cannot be reduced to predicative content or inferential structure. Its meaning exceeds the natural extension of its predicates because the truths they signify are grounded in God’s own presence. To confess that Christ is Lord, or that God is Father, is to speak within a horizon opened by the Spirit’s illumination—a horizon in which the predicate receives a depth of meaning that transcends its natural usage. Revelation not only informs language; it transforms the conditions under which language signifies.

Thus theological cognition is a form of participation. The intellect does not merely receive propositions but is joined to the truth they express. This union does not dissolve the creaturely mode of knowing; it fulfills it. The intellect remains finite, yet it becomes capable of knowing the infinite according to the measure of grace. Knowledge of God is therefore neither an achievement nor an absorption. It is a gift: apprehension without comprehension, union without confusion, presence without possession.

In this way revelation gives rise to a distinctive epistemic posture: wonder before the One who reveals, receptivity to the form of His address, and obedience to the truth disclosed. The knower is not sovereign; the object is not neutral; the act of knowing is not autonomous. Each is ordered by the divine initiative. Revelation is the light in which the intellect sees, and the light by which it becomes capable of seeing. In its deepest sense, revelation is the presence of God granting Himself to be known.

Objectiones

Ob I. If theological knowledge requires interior illumination, its certainty seems to rest on a private act that cannot be publicly verified. This appears to render theology subjective.

Ob II. If the finite intellect cannot know God except through participation in revelation, natural reason appears useless for theology, contradicting the tradition that assigns reason a genuine though limited role.

Ob III. If the intellect must be elevated to know God, then its natural capacities are insufficient. This suggests that either divine knowledge is impossible for finite beings or that nature is swallowed by grace.

Ob IV. If God is known only as He reveals Himself, then God becomes both the condition and object of knowing. This unity threatens to collapse the distinction between Creator and creature.

Responsiones

Ad I. Illumination is not a private inner certainty but an ecclesial event. The Spirit illumines through the public Word, not apart from it. What is grasped inwardly corresponds to what is proclaimed outwardly. The objectivity of revelation grounds the subject’s reception.

Ad II. Reason is neither negated nor replaced. Its natural operations remain indispensable for discerning meaning, testing coherence, and receiving revelation. What reason cannot do is generate knowledge of God. Grace perfects nature; it does not annul it.

Ad III. The intellect’s elevation is not a change of essence but a participation in divine light. Nature is neither destroyed nor absorbed. It becomes proportionate to the truth it receives through a relation of communion, not through ontological fusion.

Ad IV. Revelation unites knowing and being known without collapsing them. God is both Revealer and Revealed, yet the knower remains creaturely. Participation confers intimacy, not identity.

Nota

Disputatio X marks a structural turning point. Disputatio IX showed that divine speech transforms human language by assuming it into the expressive act of the Word. Disputatio X now shows that this same divine act transforms the intellect by illuminating it with the Spirit. The possibility of theology rests on this double assumption: the Word assumes human speech, and the Spirit assumes human knowing. Revelation is thus both the manifestation of divine truth and the creation of the capacity to receive it.

This insight prepares for what follows. If knowledge of God arises in revelation, and revelation is the presence of the Revealer in the act of revealing, then the next question must concern the mode of divine presence itself.

Determinatio

1. Knowledge of God arises only within divine revelation.

2. Revelation is intrinsically twofold: the external Word and the internal illumination.

3. The intellect becomes capable of divine truth through participation in the revelatory act.

4. Theological cognition is Spirit-mediated apprehension of divine self-disclosure.

5. Reason retains its natural dignity but is perfected, not displaced, by grace.

6. To know God is to participate in His presence: apprehensio sine comprehensione, unio sine confusione.

Transitus ad Disputationem XI

If knowledge arises only where God reveals Himself, then revelation presupposes a mode of divine presence in which God is genuinely encountered within finite forms. What is this presence? How does the infinite dwell amid the finite without displacement or division?

To answer this, we proceed to Disputatio XI: De Praesentia Dei, where the ontology of divine presence will be examined.